


We're Just Bleeding for Nothing

by stardropdream



Category: Shin Shunka-den | Legend of Chun Hyang
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 09:46:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/696950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Chun Hyang resisted Mong Ryong and one time she didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're Just Bleeding for Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ December 24, 2010. 
> 
> Holiday fic for narrow_my_bed, and her request is the summary above, ha ha.

**I.**  
The first few months of traveling are all the same. They encounter the trials of the people, and they put a stop to it. There is usually time to sleep, time to eat, and time for Mong Ryong to woo some poor, misguided village girl (as Chung Hyang puts it), but for the most part they are always traveling together. On one particular day, as they’re traveling, Mong Ryong places a hand on Chun Hyang’s shoulder in a calming gesture, because the day is beautiful and the sky is clear and they haven’t run into any mayhem or disarray in several days and Mong Ryong thinks this is a cause for celebration. In reaction to the hand on her, Chung Hyang freezes for only half a second and then she whips around, grabs his wrist, and flips him effortlessly onto the ground.   
  
He almost laughs but mostly just groans in pain as she slaps his cheek and shouts, “Don’t touch me, you pervert!”   
  
“But Chun Hyang,” he protests, rolling away when she goes to stamp her foot down on his stomach. “I was merely appreciating the beauty of the day!”  
  
“You can do that without putting the moves on me!” she protests. “Come near me again and I’ll punch you.”   
  
“Chun Hyang, there is no need for violence!” he says with a sad sigh as he sits up and then easily climbs to his feet, brushing stray grass and dirt off of himself.   
  
Chun Hyang bristles. “If it’s the only way that you’ll listen then, yeah, there is a need.”   
  
“So cruel!” he says, and only looks distressed for half a moment before he perks up, smiling widely. “But it truly is a beautiful day, isn’t it?”  
  
“At least try to be insulted for longer than two seconds!” she protests, and stomps away, her face bright red and her hands balled into fists.  
  
Mong Ryong, still smiling, follows after her. She ignores him for the rest of the day.   
  
  
  
**II.**  
One morning, before they set out from their campsite, Mong Ryong works on preparing breakfast and Chun Hyang sits by the river. She finds a spot that’s blocked off from the main flow of the water, a small pool of water blocked off by a natural formation of the river rocks. She peers at her reflection and then slowly curls her fingers through her hair, trying to make herself look at least somewhat presentable. She cares little for appearances, but sometimes it gets so bad that even she notices and makes an effort to at least stay somewhat clean and agile. She thinks to herself that her mother would be unhappy if she was dirty and her hair unbrushed, so she at least makes a habit to keep her hair cleaned.   
  
Her minds drift, as they often do, to her mother. Her expression becomes thoughtful, and she drags her fingers through her hair, slowly pulling her fingers through it and dividing it up, slowly beginning to braid her hair.   
  
Her musings are, naturally, interrupted without remorse by the chipper man next to their fire, turning towards her with a warm smile. His smile is not the lopsided, goofy smile he often wears, but something more thoughtful—and Chun Hyang hates to think that he can read her thoughts so easily.   
  
“Your hair is so lovely,” he says with that smile of his. “I wonder what it would look like once you’ve finished braiding it,” Mong Ryong says with a sigh. “I’m sure you’ll be a lovely maiden who—”  
  
Chun Hyang immediately unfurls the braid, leaving her hair limp. She is blushing, but she quickly glares at him, lips pursed.   
  
“Aaah, but it’s just as beautiful let down, as well,” he says, completely undeterred by her silent refusal. Her face heats up further.  
  
“You—!” she begins, unable to summon up a proper insult.   
  
“There is no maiden as cute as Chun Hyang,” Mong Ryong continues, and now his smile is goofy.   
  
“Idiot, don’t say things like that!” she shouts, standing up abruptly and nearly slamming her foot down into the water for her troubles. She tries to look as fierce as she can, straightening up to her full height—which is still only a fraction in comparison to Mong Ryong’s. It helps that the man is sitting, though, and she stomps over to him to try to be as physically intimidating as humanly possible. Mong Ryong seems shamelessly unintimidated.   
  
“I pay you a heartfelt, warm sentiment and you respond with insults,” he says with a regretful sigh, cupping his own cheek with a hand and slumping into it, looking ever the part of the remorseful, scorned lover. Chun Hyang _hates it_ when he does that. He adds, “I feel I’ll have to cry now.”   
  
“It’s not heartfelt! I’ve heard you say the same thing to dozens of women. At least five since _yesterday_!”  
  
“But by far Chun Hyang is the cutest!” he insists.  
  
She punches him in the back of the head and he flinches, clutching the back of his head and lamenting the scorn of such a beautiful woman.   
  
Chun Hyang stomps away to the other side of the fire, accepts the food stoically, and spends the rest of the morning glaring at him and threatening him with bodily harm. Her face never stops feeling red and heated.   
  
  
  
**III.**  
Chun Hyang steps back as she finishes burying the last of the graves. It isn’t raining, but the sky threatens it. She stands in silence, and knows that Mong Ryong is behind her. He steps up beside her.   
  
“I couldn’t…” she begins. “Why am I so weak whenever it matters most?”   
  
He grasps her shoulders and leans down to whisper, “You are very strong, Chun Hyang.”  
  
“If I’m so strong, I should have been able to protect them,” she says, quietly.  
  
Mong Ryong is silent for a long moment. And then he says, calmly, in perfect seriousness, “It is strength to admit to our weaknesses. They would not blame you. It was not your fault.”  
  
She ducks her head, and just shakes her head.   
  
He does not press her nor does he remove her hands.   
  
“I believe you are the strongest girl I know,” he says. “This does not make you weak.”  
  
After a pause, she shakes her head and wrenches from his hold. She walks away, head bowed.   
  
“You’re an idiot,” she whispers, disbelieving the words in these moments of weakness, when she is haunted by ghosts and one thousand _what if_ s.   
  
  
  
**IV.**  
Chun Hyang yanks him, harshly, from the group of village girls.   
  
“Idiot!” she shouts.  
  
The girls giggle, and then scatter when Chun Hyang glares and then shouts that they have to protect themselves from traveling perverts. She then slaps Mong Ryong for good measure.  
  
“Ow! Chun Hyang!” he whines, rubbing at his cheek.   
  
She bristles. “Why can’t you ever leave girls alone?”  
  
“They’re so beautiful, it’d be a crime for me to leave them ignored,” Mong Ryong protests, and dodges when Chun Hyang goes to hit him again.   
  
“Leave them alone!”   
  
“Surely you can’t mean for me,” he says, holding up his hands in a sign of surrender when Chun Hyang goes in for yet another attack, “to ignore any maiden who addresses me!” She pauses, and then her glare intensifies. He laughs, and says as way of defense: “That’d be far too rude! Not like me at all!”   
  
“You probably freak them out enough as is!” she shouts, red-faced.   
  
“Cruel as always. I have to lament your harshness towards me, Chun Hyang.” He even looks properly scandalized. She bristles.   
  
“Idiot!”  
  
“I almost think you’re jealous,” he says with a long sigh.  
  
“You wish,” she snaps, and starts to stomp away.   
  
He starts to follow her. “But Chun Hyang, don’t you know you’re the one I always come back to?”   
  
He’s laughing as he says it, but Chun Hyang freezes anyway. She gives him a long look, and then remembers to glare at him. She continues stomping, and he lets out a sigh and a quiet _shot down again!_ He dances after her, a delightful swing in his step as he goes, humming to himself. Chun Hyang could kill him for all his cheeriness. They walk through the town in a stilted silence. They’d come to town searching for clues, but now Chun Hyang is too frustrated to concentrate. She stews in her anger and annoyance, at her frustrations. Mong Ryong is still humming behind her. She does not dare turn around.  
  
Finally, though, she bites at her lip and lets out a long sigh, steadying her nerves.   
  
“Just don’t chase after them, idiot,” she finally mutters. “I hate it when you do.”   
  
There’s no immediate response, and Chun Hyang feels her entire body twitch. She turns around to shout at him for not agreeing to the condition and realizes that Mong Ryong is halfway across the pathway, talking to a girl selling fruit.   
  
She sees red. She picks up a crate of fruit beside her and stomps towards him, with murderous intent.   
  
  
  
**I.**  
The sky is black and blue. The sun sinks towards the horizon and stains it red. It is quiet in the forest, where the enemies either lay dead before them, or retreated into the darkness of the trees.   
  
Chun Hyang turns to look to Mong Ryong. Mong Ryong is looking at her with that calm smile on his face, and for half a moment, she thinks that all her doubts are gone. She can see he is injured. She can see he is bleeding.   
  
“Hey,” she says, and knows she is injured as well. “You got hit, idiot.”   
  
“So I did,” he says, pleasantly. She does not know how he can smile, even in such situations—she does not know if it is strength or foolishness.   
  
“Idiot,” she says again.   
  
“Perhaps I’ll be lucky and have someone as pretty as Chun Hyang to look after me and nurse me back to health.”  
  
She stares at him, at the way the blood drizzles down his arms, staining his clothes and dripping to the ground. It is hard to breathe, for half a moment. It is hard, sometimes, to stand on her own.   
  
She steps forward, grabbing his wrist with less harshness then she is accustomed to. “Come on.”   
  
He follows her without word, but his smile does soften into something more genuine.


End file.
